Arnold
Arnold is a fictional character and the titular protagonist in the Nickelodeon animated television series Hey Arnold!. His head is shaped like an American football, thus earning him the nickname "Football-Head", by Helga. Throughout the series' run, he was voiced by at least five different voice actors: J.D. Daniels (who did his voice in the pilot), Toran Caudell, Phillip Van Dyke, Spencer Klein (who voiced Arnold in Hey Arnold!: The Movie in addition to numerous television episodes), and Alex D. Linz. He was created in 1986. Personality Arnold is a calm dreamer and an idealist who always tries to see the best in people and to do the right thing. Whenever he sees someone in trouble, Arnold goes out of his way to help them out, even if it is not sensible to do so (an example being when he tried to protect some of his classmates, who had mooned the school principal). Arnold often acts as the stable centre to those around him, whether he is around his (non-biological) family in his paternal grandparents' (Dan Castellaneta and Tress MacNeille) boarding house The Sunset Arms, or around his friends at his school, P.S. 118. He is picked on, especially by Helga, for his trademark football shaped head. He has spikey blonde hair that sticks up and a tiny blue baseball cap that sits on one side of his head. He also appears to wear a red and yellow plaid "skirt" over jeans, though it is later revealed to be the bottom of an undershirt poking out from his sweater. Helga has once compared his eyes to green jellybeans in one of her many love poems about him. According to the Parents Day and The Journal episodes, Arnold's adventurous parents, anthropologist Miles and physician/botanist Stella, were doing missions in the jungle of San Lorenzo when they disappeared. According to those episodes, Arnold was born while his parents were on an earlier expedition in the jungle to bring medicine to the natives. His birth coincided with the eruption of a nearby volcano, which the locals believed to be an indication that Arnold would one day become a hero of sorts who would save the world from a great danger. Arnold was not told of these events until later in the series when it was revealed by his grandfather. It is unknown how the "prophecy" may have fit into the series had it continued, however it could have been the way he saved his neighborhood in Hey Arnold!: The Movie. He has a love for music, particularly jazz. He is seen in one episode discussing with his friends various sound systems, owning himself, an advanced sound system. He also taught himself to play harmonica and has played it a few times throughout Seasons 1 and 2. His room contains interesting technology such as a remote control that controls everything in his room and a couch that can rotate into and out of the wall when needed. His entire ceiling comprises several skylights as well. In the episode, "Married", it is revealed his favorite number is 5 and his favorite color is blue. History Arnold was created in 1988 by Craig Bartlett, who was also responsible for the clay-animated Penny shorts on CBS's Pee-wee's Playhouse. The original Arnold was visualized as a kid with a vivid imagination, who always wore a prep-school uniform (though he attended public school) and a cap, and was rendered in clay in a series of shorts, one of them televised in the 1990s on Sesame Street, and continued to air there, even after the Nick version debuted. In 1991, the Arnold comic stories, written and drawn by Bartlett (who's also a comic book artist), were published in Simpsons Illustrated magazine (Bartlett is the brother-in-law of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons). The familiar, cel-animated Arnold came about in the mid-1990s when Nick picked up the new series. Apart from the animation style, Nick's Arnold now wears a sweater, with his plaid shirt untucked (resembling a kilt). Only Arnold's beloved cap remained from the original wardrobe. Last name Arnold's last name has never been revealed on the show. With the exception of a few secondary characters (including Sid and Brainy), the only other notable characters whose surnames are unknown are Arnold's grandparents. They presumably have the same last name as Arnold, since in "Parents Day" and "The Journal" it is revealed they are his father's parents. The mystery surrounding Arnold's full name became a running gag on the show, by the last name almost being revealed, then someone or something interrupting or otherwise preventing it from being heard (much like the location of the "secret spot" on Rocket Power, Fez's home country on That 70s Show, Timmy Turner's parents' names on The Fairly Odd Parents, the Krabby Patty secret formula on SpongeBob SquarePants, what is under Double D's hat in Ed, Edd n Eddy, the Janitor's name on Scrubs, the state Springfield is in on The Simpsons, the name of El Chavo, Pat's gender from the Saturday Night Live sketch "It's Pat", and Ms. Bellum's face on the Powerpuff Girls). Some notable occasions when the name is almost revealed include: *In a commercial for the show that aired in the early part of the show's run, Arnold talks to the viewer to straighten out some facts about himself (such as the revelation that his notable red outerwear is a shirt, not a skirt). He ends with, "And yes, I do have a last name. It's..." at which point the screen turns into static and the sound cuts off, because the camera's batteries run out. *In the episode "Fighting Families" Arnold wins the school's raffle drawing for the chance to be on the game show Fighting Families. The lady doing the drawing announces, "The winner is Arnold...hm, there seems to be a smudge over the last name." Here it is revealed that Arnold is the only one in the school with this first name, thus making his surname somewhat unnecessary. *A similar instance to the one above occurs in "Eugene, Eugene!", where Tim Curry's character is casting the school kids for an upcoming play, and says, "I can't read my own handwriting", when he's casting Arnold as the villain. However, that scene did at least reveal Lila's last name (Sawyer, as mentioned above). *In one episode, "Crush on Teacher", in which Helga does one of her many passionate monologues about her love for Arnold, she says that she would one day like to become "Mrs. Arnold...wait, what is his last name?", revealing that she is just as clueless as the viewer. *In the episode "The Journal", Phil is reading the part of Miles's journal that recounts his and Stella's wedding. He gets to the part when they are pronounced "Mr. and Mrs...." at which point Grandma interrupts with a loud burp. *In the episode "Married", Helga dreams that she is married to Arnold, and that she is the President. In her opening speech, she introduces Arnold as "Arnold Pataki." *Series creator Craig Bartlett had been planning to finally reveal his last name in a second Feature film for the series, which would also deal with his search to find his parents. Craig mentioned in a subsequent online chat: "I had an idea for the Jungle Movie (how Bartlett refers to the planned film), in the opening scene, a man comes to the door of the boarding house, and Arnold signs his name. Right, that's how you find out." However, problems between Bartlett and Nickelodeon, as well as the low gross of the first film, led to the cancellation of this second film. In 2006 in an online chat with Hey Arnold! fans, Bartlett revealed that Arnold's grandpa used his last name throughout the series, almost confirming that Arnold's last name is "Shortman" (a transcript of this chat can be found here). Craig also mentioned that Arnold's second name most likely is "Phillip". *In some episodes, other characters can be seen referring to Arnold as "Shortman" (In the beginning of Arnold Visits Arnie, Helga is telling the other characters their positions in a game of baseball she is quoted saying "Looks like you're on Shortstop, Shortman.") *In a commercial for Hey Arnold, where Bartlett is interviewed, Bartlett promises that Arnold's last name will be revealed, and that the audience has been hearing his name throughout the entire series. Grandpa frequently calls Arnold "Shortman." Birth Date During the seasons of "Hey Arnold" they never revealed his birthday. But during the episode, "Married!" Arnold takes a marriage test and finds out he is going to marry Helga. During the test, one of the questions is his birth day number, He responds the 7th. Also in the "Mugged" episode on Arnold's bus pass it says yes under the header Born.